Butterflies and Late Loves: The Further Travels and Adventures of a Victorian Lady

by Margaret Fountaine, W.F. Cater (Editor)

This selection from her diaries, linked by W.F. Cater's superb commentary, covers the period from 1913 until 1939, a few months before her death. Margaret Fountaine's insatiable desire for travel took her to some of the loneliest and most beautiful places in the world, among them Australia, Brazil, Kenya, the Amazon, Siam and the West Indies. Most of the time she was accompanied by Khalil Neimy, her loyal and enigmatic Syrian lover, to whom she was devoted for twenty-seven years. In later life she endured considerable hardship and sorrow, yet her energy and adventurous spirit rarely faltered. She was an outstanding woman by the standards of any age, and her diaries are a fascinating record of a "wild and fearless life".

Genres: Diary, Nonfiction, Travel, Biography

174 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Margaret Elizabeth Fountaine, a Victorian lepidopterist and diarist, was an accomplished natural history illustrator. She had a great love and knowledge of butterflies, travelling and collecting extensively through Europe, South Africa, India, Tibet, America, Australia and the West Indies, publishing numerous papers on her work. She raised many of the butterflies from eggs or caterpillars, producing specimens of great quality, 22,000 of which are housed at the Norwich Castle Museum and known as the Fountaine-Neimy Collection. Her four sketch books of butterfly life-cycles are held at the Natural History Museum in London.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admit I haven't read the first part (since it was this one I came across at a used book-sale), but there is a long introduction, that tells what happened in the first volume so you are well prepared for the continued diaries - not diaries in the usual sense, Miss Fountaine wrote a yearly summary (on April 15th).

Some passages are quite interesting, others more boring - and I would have loved to see some illustrations. There are several references to photos which existed with the diary and it would have been great if at least some of them had been included too (maybe there are in other editions, but not in my hard-back copy - just one just at the beginning which I'm guessing is of Miss Fountaine and Charles, though there is no text that says whether it is or not). These diary fragments can only tell so much...

[Goldenwattle · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable read, but much the same as the previous book. Margaret Fountaine lived a very interesting life.

[Susan Barton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second book in the life and loves of Miss Margaret Fontain. A wonderful insite into the life of a very independent Victorian lepidopterist, not a typical Victorian spinster

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

So lovely to have finally read the follow up to Love Among the Butterflies. Margaret was such an endearing and characterful journal writer, and inspiring traveller